Old News 4

In February 2008 representatives of COPA UK travelled to the Dominican Republic for an International Conference which included representatives from USA, Guernsey and DR as well as members of our team of volunteers. Roger Tovey, UK Vice Chairperson provides details of the meeting, which was over two days and chaired by Sebert Lane the co-founder and International President of COPA. Reasons for the meeting included:

· To review our progress and impact to date

· To confirm with our partners the core aims and vision of COPA

· To agree the way forward for COPA

It was also of great value to meet members of the other committees whom we had only corresponded with by email or telephone. We can now put faces and personalities to names.

Several proposals and recommendations were made for discussion and for ratification by each national committee. These included:

· Agreed the importance of maintaining the level of excellence in the schools and clinics.

· Agreed in principle to extend our work to developing additional schools if the need presented itself within our geographical area of operation. This would of course require significant funding and sponsor recruitment.

· The delegates were excited by the progress of the experimental partnership schools project whereby COPA provides training and resources to assist in raising the standards at existing state schools.

· Continue to support students to attend secondary education.

· Developing our training rooms to provide vocational courses for young people not suited for academic studies.

· Set up a fund from which we can support students to go on to university.

The full article is available on the June 2008 Newsletter.

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